The present invention relates generally to an intense relativistic electron beam generator and more particularly to an electron beam generator using a beam switch to decrease the rise time of the generated electron beam. The U.S. Government has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. DE-AC04-76DP00789 between the Department of Energy and Sandia Corporation.
Many intense relativistic electron beam (IREB) generators provide outputs having current rise times on the order of 10 to 50 nanoseconds. However, for applications such as collective ion accelerators or electron beam propagation studies, it is desirable to have a rise time as small as possible. Previous methods for steepening the rise time of an IREB include use of beam conditioning cells or magnetic cores. Beam conditioning cells have been used to reduce the rise time of an IREB to 2-3 nanoseconds. The use of magnetic cores to produce similar results has been suggested, but not yet demonstrated. Thus, previous methods have not been able to reduce current rise times to subnanosecond levels.